This exhibition is a major retrospective of one of Ireland’s most highly-regarded painters.  Spanning Madden’s entire artistic career, it comprises some 60 works from the 1950s to date, and includes a number of recent works direct from the artist’s studio.  The exhibition features some of her most important paintings, including early works such as Self Portrait, 1950, works from the series inspired by the Burren such as Clare Land, 1967, to her series of Megaliths, Monoliths and Doorways, from the 1970s. The exhibition also includes early sculptural works, paintings from her Elegy, Pompeii, Odyssey and Garden series and new paintings from her Aurora Borealis series.

Anne Madden is particularly well known in both Ireland and France where she has divided her time for the past forty years.  Of Irish and Anglo-Chilean origin, she spent her first years in Chile. The family then moved to Europe, where they lived in both Ireland and London, where Madden attended the Chelsea School of Arts and Crafts. In 1958 she married the Irish painter Louis Le Brocquy and moved to the south of France.  From the 1960s she began to paint a series of abstract landscapes influenced by her time as a young girl in the west of Ireland, near the Burren in Co Clare.  Between 1970 and 1979 Madden painted a large series of vertical works, their size determined by her height and reach. Reflecting on life and death, the works derived from megaliths and other prehistoric monuments.  In the 1980s Madden stopped painting for a time and devoted herself to drawing, this resulted in a series of large works in graphite and oil paint on paper.  Madden then returned to painting on canvas and has continued to develop and produce a large body of work.  She has exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions and her work is represented in many public collections.  In 1965 she represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale and exhibited at ROSC ’84. Solo exhibitions include RHA Gallagher Galleries, Dublin, 1991; Chateau de Tours Municipal Art Gallery, France, 1997; Dublin City Gallery: The Hugh Lane, Dublin, 1997; Taylor Galleries, Dublin, 2005, and Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2005.  

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition and features essays by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA, and the poet Derek Mahon; a poem by Derek Mahon and a short text by Marcelin Pleynet; Anne Madden’s important essay A quest: some reflections on being a painter; and a comprehensive illustrated chronology compiled by Karen Sweeney.  It is published by the Irish Museum of Modern Art in association with Scala. To buy the catalogue click here

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Press Release

A Limited Edition print by Anne Madden is available to buy, please follow the link to IMMA Edition: Anne Madden

To buy the catalogue for this exhibition click here

http://www.anne-madden.com